Six Years

by Harlan Coben

  "Promise me, Jake. Promise me you'll leave us alone."

  Those were the last words the love of my life said to me. The very last. And here I was, six years later, going back to where it all began, to break my word. I waited to find irony in that, but irony would not come.

  As I hit the town center, the gentle aroma of fresh pastries made me pull up. The Kraftboro Bookstore Cafe. Natalie's favorite scones. I thought about it and decided that it was worth a try.

  When I opened the door, a little bell rang, but that sound was quickly forgotten. Elton John was singing that the child's name was Levon, and he'd be a good man. I felt a rush and a shiver. Both tables were taken, including, of course, our old favorite. I stared at it, just standing there like a big goof, and for a moment I swore I could hear Natalie's laugh. A man with a maroon baseball cap came in behind me. I was still blocking the door.

  "Uh, excuse me," he said.

  I moved to the side to let him pass. My eyes found the coffee bar. A woman with wildly curly hair wearing, yep, a purple tie-dyed shirt had her back to me. No doubt about it. It was Cookie. My heart picked up a step. She turned, saw me, and smiled. "Can I get you something?"

  "Hi, Cookie."

  "Hey."

  Silence.

  "Do you remember me?" I asked.

  She was wiping frosting off her hands with a hand towel. "I'm bad with faces, but even worse with names. What can I get you?"

  "I used to come in here," I said. "Six years ago. My girlfriend's name was Natalie Avery. We used to sit at the corner table."

  She nodded but not like she remembered. She nodded like she wanted to appease the lunatic. "Lots of customers in and out. Coffee? Doughnut?"

  "Natalie loved your scones."

  "A scone it is. Blueberry?"

  "I'm Jake Fisher. I was writing my dissertation on the rule of law. You used to ask me about it. Natalie was an artist from the retreat. She'd break out her sketchpad right in that corner." I gestured toward it, as though that mattered. "Six years ago. Over the summer. Heck, you were the one to point her out to me."

  "Uh-huh," she said, her fingers toying with her necklace as though they were prayer beads. "See, that's the good part of being called Cookie. You don't forget a name like Cookie. It sticks in the mind. But the bad part is, since everyone remembers your name, they think you should do the same. You know what I mean?"

  "I do," I said. Then: "You really don't remember?"

  She didn't bother replying. I looked around the cafe. People at the tables were starting to stare. The guy with the maroon baseball cap was over by the magazines, pretending he wasn't hearing a thing. I turned back to Cookie.

  "Small coffee, please."

  "No scones?"

  "No thanks."

  She grabbed a cup and started to fill it.

  "Are you still with Denise?" I asked.

  Her body stiffened.

  "She used to work at the retreat up the hill too," I said. "That's how I knew her."

  I saw Cookie swallow. "We never worked at the retreat."

  "Sure you did. The Creative Recharge, right up the path. Denise would bring in the coffee and your scones."

  She finished pouring the coffee and put it on the counter in front of me. "Look, mister, I have work to do."

  I leaned closer to her. "Natalie loved your scones."

  "So you said."

  "You two used to talk about them all the time."

  "I talk to a lot of people about my scones, okay? I'm sorry I don't remember you. I probably should have been polite and faked it and been all, 'Oh sure, you and your scone-loving girlfriend, how you guys doing?' But I didn't. Here's your coffee. Can I get you something else?"

  I took out my card with all my phone numbers on it. "If you remember anything . . ."

  "Can I get you something else?" she asked, more bite in her voice now.

  "No."

  "Then that's a buck fifty. Have a nice day."

  Chapter 9

  I now understand when someone says they feel as though they're being followed.

  How did I know? Intuition maybe. My lizard brain could sense it. I could feel it in almost a physical way. That, plus the same car--a gray Chevy van with a Vermont license plate--had been behind me since I left the town of Kraftboro.

  I couldn't swear to it, but I thought that maybe the driver was wearing a maroon baseball cap.

  I wasn't sure what to do about this. I tried to make out the license plate number, but it was too dark now. If I slowed down, he'd slow down. If I picked up speed, well, you get the drift. An idea came to me. I pulled over at a rest stop to see what the tail would do. I saw the van slow and then drive on. From that point on, I didn't see the van again.

  So maybe he wasn't following me.

  I was about ten minutes away from Lanford when my cell phone rang. I had the phone set up to go through the car Bluetooth--something it took me much too long to figure out--so I could see on the radio screen that it was Shanta Newlin. She had promised to get back to me by the end of the day with Natalie's address. I answered the call with a press of a button on the steering wheel.

  "It's Shanta," she said.

  "Yeah, I know. I got that caller ID thing up."

  "And I think my years at the FBI make me special," she said. "Where are you?"

  "I'm driving back to Lanford."

  "Back from where?"

  "It's a long story," I said. "Did you find her address?"

  "That's why I called," Shanta said. I could hear something in the background--a man's voice maybe. "I don't have it yet."

  "Oh?" I said, because what else was I going to say to that. "Is there a problem?"

  "I need you to give me until the morning, okay?"

  "Sure," I said. Then I repeated: "Is there a problem?"

  There was a pause that lasted a beat too long. "Just give me till morning." She hung up.

  What the hell?

  I hadn't liked the tone. I hadn't liked the fact that a woman with enormous contacts in the FBI needed until morning to find the address of a random woman. My smartphone dinged, signaling that I was getting a new e-mail. I ignored it. I am not a goody-goody or any of that, but I never text or e-mail and drive. Two years ago, a student at Lanford had been seriously injured while texting and driving. The eighteen-year-old woman in the passenger seat, a freshman in my Rule of Law class, died in the crash. Even before that, even before the wealth of obvious information about the downright stupidity if not criminal negligence in texting while driving, I was not a fan. I like driving. I like the solitude and the music. In spite of my earlier misgivings about technological seclusion, we all need to disconnect more often. I realize that I sound like a grumpy old man, complaining that whenever I see a table of college "friends" sitting together they are inevitably texting with unseen others, searching, always searching, I guess, for something that might be better, a perpetual life hunt for digital greener grass, an attempt to smell roses that are elsewhere at the expense of the ones in front of you, but there are few times that I feel more at peace, more in tune, more Zen, if you will, than when I force myself to unplug.

  Right now I was flipping stations, settling on one that played 1st Wave music from the eighties. General Public asked, where is the tenderness? I wondered that too. Where is the tenderness? For that matter, where is Natalie?

  I was getting loopy.

  I parked in front of my housing--I didn't call it my house or my apartment because it was and felt like campus housing. Night had fallen, but because we are a college campus, there was plenty of artificial illumination. I checked the new e-mail and saw it was from Mrs. Dinsmore. The subject read:

  Here's the student file you requested

  Good work, you sexy beast, I thought. I clicked on the message. It read in its entirety:

  How much elaboration do you need on "Here's the student file you requested"?

  Clearly the answer was, none.

  My phone's screen was too small to see the attached f
ile, so I hurried up the walk in order to view it on my laptop. I put my key in the lock, opened the front door, and flipped on the lights. For some reason I expected, I don't know, to find the place in shambles, as though someone had ransacked the joint, as they say. I had seen too many movies. My apartment remained, at kindest, nondescript.

  I rushed over to my computer and jumped on the e-mail. I opened the one from Mrs. Dinsmore and downloaded the attachment. As I mentioned earlier, I saw my student file years ago. It was, I thought, a tad disturbing, reading professors' comments that had not been shared with me. I guess at some point the school decided that it was too much to store all these old records so they'd scanned them into digital forms.

  I started with Todd's freshman year. There was nothing particularly spectacular there except that Todd was, well, spectacular. Straight A+'s across the board. No freshman got straight A+'s. Professor Charles Powell noted that Todd was "an exceptional student." Professor Ruth Kugelmass raved, "A special kid." Even Professor Malcolm Hume, never one easy with praise, commented: "Todd Sanderson is almost supernaturally gifted." Wow. I found this strange. I had been a good student here, and the only note I'd found in my file was negative. The only ones I'd ever written were negative. If all was okay, the professor just left it alone and let the grade suffice. The rule of thumb in student files seemed to be, "If you have nothing negative to say, don't say anything at all."

  But not with good ol' Todd.

  First-semester sophomore year followed the same pattern--incredible grades--but then things changed abruptly. Next to second semester was a big "LOA."

  Leave of Absence.

  Hmm. I checked for a reason and it only said, "Personal." That was bizarre. We rarely, if ever, leave it at just that--"Personal" in a student file--because the file is closed and confidential. Or supposed to be. We write openly in here.

  So why be so circumspect about Todd's LOA?

  Usually the "personal" reason involves some kind of financial hardship or an illness, either the student's or a close family member's, either physical or mental. But those reasons are always listed in the private student files. None was listed here.

  Interesting.

  Or not. For one thing they were probably more discreet about personal issues twenty years ago. But second . . . well, who cared? What on earth could Todd's taking time off as a sophomore have to do with his marrying Natalie and then dying and leaving behind a different wife?

  When Todd came back to school, there were now more professor comments--not the ones a student would long for. One professor described him as "distracted." Another said that Todd was "clearly bitter" and "not the same." Another suggested that Todd should take more time off to deal with "the situation." No one mentioned what the situation was.

  I clicked to the next page. Todd had been brought up to the disciplinary board. Some schools have students deal with disciplinary issues, but we have a three-professor rotating panel. I did it for a two-month stint last year. Most of the cases that came before us dealt with two campus epidemics: underage drinking and cheating. The rest were a smattering of thefts or threats of violence or some variety of sexual assault or aggression that didn't meet the standard for law enforcement.

  The case that came before the disciplinarian board involved an altercation between Todd and another student named Ryan McCarthy. McCarthy ended up hospitalized with contusions and a broken nose. The school was calling for a heavy suspension or even expulsion, but the three-professor panel gave Todd a total pass. That surprised me. There were no details or minutes on the actual hearing or the subsequent deliberations. That surprised me too.

  The handwritten decision had been scanned into the file:

  Todd Sanderson, a superior member of the Lanford College community, has had a tough blow in his life, but we think he is on the way back. He has recently worked with a faculty member to create a charity to make amends for his recent actions. He understands the ramifications of what he has done, and due to the highly unusual extenuating circumstances in this case, we have agreed that Todd Sanderson should not face expulsion.

  My eyes traveled down to the bottom of the page to see the professor who had signed the panel's opinion. I made a face. Professor Eban Trainor. I should have known. I knew Trainor well enough. We were not what one would call friendly.

  If I wanted to learn more about this "tough blow" or indeed this decision, I would need to talk to Eban. I wasn't looking forward to that.

  It was late, but I wasn't worried about waking Benedict. He only used a cell phone and turned it off when sleeping. He answered on the third ring.

  "What?"

  "Eban Trainor," I said.

  "What about him?"

  "He still hate my guts?"

  "I would assume so. Why?"

  "I need to ask him about my buddy Todd Sanderson. Do you think you can smooth it out?"

  "Smooth it out? Sure. Why do you think they call me the Sandman?"

  "Because you put your students to sleep?"

  "You really know how to butter a guy up when you're asking for a favor. I'll call you in the morning."

  We hung up. I sat back, unsure what to do next, when my monitor dinged that I had received a new e-mail. I was going to ignore it. Like most people I knew, I got too many irrelevant e-mails during all hours of the day. This would undoubtedly be yet another.

  Then I saw the sender's e-mail address:

  RSbyJA@ymail.com

  I stared at it until my eyes watered. There was a rushing in my ears. Everything around me was silent and too still. I kept staring, but the letters didn't change.

  RSbyJA.

  It took me no time to see what those letters meant: Redemption's Son by Joseph Arthur--the album Natalie and I listened to in the cafe.

  The subject was empty. My hand found the mouse. I tried to get the cursor over the e-mail so I could open it, but first I had to control my shake. I took a deep breath and willed my hand still. The room remained a hushed quiet, almost expectantly so. I moved the cursor over the e-mail and clicked on it.

  The e-mail stopped my heart.

  There, on my screen, were four words. That was all, just four words, but those four words sliced through my chest like a reaper's scythe, making it nearly impossible to breathe. I collapsed back on the chair, lost, as the four words on the screen stared back at me:

  You made a promise.

  Chapter 10

  The e-mail wasn't signed. Didn't matter.

  I quickly hit the reply button and typed: Natalie? Are you okay? Please just let me know that.

  I hit send.

  I would explain to you how time slowed to a crawl as I waited for her next e-mail, but that wasn't really what happened. There was no time for it, I guess. Three seconds later, my new-e-mail-ding sounded. My heart raced until I saw the sender's name:

  MAILDAEMON

  I clicked open but I already knew what I would find: This e-mail address doesn't exist . . .

  I almost smacked the computer in frustration, as if it were a candy machine that wouldn't dispense the Milky Way. I actually shouted "No way!" out loud. I didn't know what to do. I sat there and I started drowning. I felt as though I were sinking and couldn't even flail my way back to the surface.

  I went back to googling. I tried the e-mail and different variations, but it was just a waste of time. I read her e-mail again: You made a promise.

  I had, hadn't I? And when you stopped and thought about it, why did I break that promise? A man had died. Maybe it was her husband. Maybe it wasn't. Still, was that a reason to go back on my promise to her? Maybe. Maybe it was at first. But now she had made it clear. That was the purpose of the e-mail. Natalie was calling me on it. She was reminding me of the promise because she knew that I don't make promises idly.

  It was why she had made me promise to stay away in the first place.

  I thought about that now. I thought about the funeral and the visit to Vermont and this student file. What did it all add up to? I don't know
. If it had originally warranted going back on my word, I now had proof that I could no longer justify it. Natalie's message couldn't have been clearer.

  You made a promise.

  With a tentative finger, I touched the words on the screen. My heart crumbled anew. Too bad, tough guy. So okay, heartbreak notwithstanding, I would let it go. I would back off. I would keep my word.

  I headed to bed and fell asleep almost immediately. I know. I was surprised by that too, but I think all the blows since reading that obituary, the swirl of memory and emotion, of heartbreak and confusion, wore me down like a boxer taking body shots for twelve solid rounds. Eventually, I just folded.

  Unlike Benedict, I often forget to turn my cell phone off. His call at 8:00 A.M. woke me up.

  "Eban has reluctantly agreed to meet with you."

  "Did you tell him what it's about?"

  "You didn't tell me what it's about."

  "Oh. Right."

  "You got a nine A.M. class. He'll be waiting for you at his house when you're done."

  I felt the pang deep in my chest. "His house?"

  "Yeah, I didn't think you'd like that. He insisted."

  "Douchebag move."

  "He isn't so bad."

  "He's a lecherous creep."

  "And that's bad because?"

  "You don't do what he does."

  "You don't know what he does. Go. Be nice. Get what you need."

  Benedict hung up. I checked my e-mail and texts. Nothing. This whole strange episode in my life had taken on a surreal, dream-like quality. I worked hard to dismiss it. I did indeed have a 9:00 A.M. class on Law and the Constitution. That was my priority again. Yep, I'd put it behind me. I actually sang in the shower. I dressed and walked across campus with my smile wide and my head high. There was a little hop in my step. The sun bathed the campus in a warm, celestial beacon. I kept smiling. I smiled at the brick buildings longing for ivy. I smiled at the trees, at the lush grass, at the statues of famous alumni, at the view of the athletic fields down the hill. When students said hello to me, I greeted them with a level of enthusiasm that made one fear I was suddenly into religious conversion.

  When class started, I stood in the front of the room and shouted "Good morning, everyone!" like a born-again cheerleader on too much Red Bull. The students gave me curious looks. I was starting to scare myself, so I tried to dial it back.